A protector.

As I get older, I started to realise that the scariest thing about aging is not even the fact that you are nearing the end of this journey, but to end up alone at the end. 

I used to think, when I was young and brazen, that having children was not really that necessary, and getting married was truly overrated. However, as I realize now, it is very different to be 25 and alone, or 75. Being alone at the old age makes you incredibly vulnerable. 

Have you ever watched “I care a Lot”? 

My boss said he wasn’t even able to finish watching it. It made him feel that uneasy. I did finish it, and I have to say is one of the most unpleasant films I have ever watched in my life, including donkey porn my first boyfriend thought I maybe would have liked to see for some bizarre reason. 

In the film, a brilliant con artist played by Rosamund Pike, gets herself legally appointed as a guardian of lonely wealthy people and gets them trapped in a home, stealing their money.

The reason I guess for anyone who watches this film to feel so uneasy is because it is feels so realistic. And it makes you see that even when you have money but are old and alone, it is easy to be fooled, robbed, tricked, or abused in many ways. And nobody can help, even the government.

Now, because this is a fictional story, one old and rich woman Rosamund’s character targets turns out to have a Russian mafia son. Big mistake. So you get this great moment of satisfaction when the evil character realises  the old lady was not the one she should have messed with. 

She had a protector.  

As I was growing up in Baku, there was one category of older ladies which I particularly felt sorry for. Those were poor, lonely and usually Russian babushkas, often abandoned by their relatives who emigrated abroad and left them behind, or some who simply never got married or had children. You see, Azeri people are raised with the notion of looking after our geriatrics. And if you are old in Azerbaijan, you will most probably have some relatives or children who would not let you starve. But if you don’t have a family, I doubt the system would look after you properly. I don’t know how things are now, but in my childhood days, being an old lonely Russian babushka in Azerbaijan was probably the worst position to be in.

But sometimes, someone who is poor and lonely suddenly has a protector nobody expected them to have. And then, it feels great. Just like in that movie. 

One of the most memorable stories for me somehow is the story of how we helped my old nanny. She was single and old, and poor. And Russian. I am not sure exactly if she had family and they left Azerbaijan or what exactly had happened that resulted in her being totally alone at her old age, but that’s what it was. 

She lived in an area that used to be affectionately referred to by the locals as the  “poo-ey neighbourhood”. In a small courtyard of similar dwellings, my Russian nanny had a tiny shack. She was the only single old Russian lady in the whole yard. 

One day, she came to my mother in tears. New neighbours had put a gas stove out in the courtyard, cooking right outside her window. She asked them a few times to move it, and they simply laughed at her. What could a Russian babushka do to them? Alone, with no connections or money? You see, connections matter. Probably everywhere, but especially in countries like my home country. 

But my Russian nanny happened to know us. We, in turn, happened to have a friend whose husband happened to be a chief of the local fire brigade. 

Imagine the shock of the Russian “babushka’s”neighbours when one day a couple of fire brigade people showed up and fined them for breaking the fire safety regulations. 

The joy that brought to my old nanny will be one of my happiest childhood memories. The satisfaction we as a family got from this little bit of protection we could give someone so helpless, was priceless.

I still, even now, get this funny feeling when I see elderly people who are clearly poor or lonely, or both. I get this overwhelming desire to do something to help, somehow. 

And this is my biggest dream for my home country. That it becomes a society that looks after their elderly, those who are poor, or sick but without connections, or without a family to look after them. That, to me, would make a perfect society. A place where you know you can grow old alone and feel safe. Even when you don’t have a “protector”.